3. Conclusion
The idea of ecometrics, which it has been the purpose here to begin to explain, has its primary basis in pure science’s sublime insights into nature. That is its main strength at this point. It has to do largely with what happens and has happened, in terms of DNA’s energy transformations and information gathering. But where it applies to problems which call for decision and action, it has also to do with what should happen, in connection with which the timeless aim of pursuit of the sublime offers an important adjunct. In small compass little more can be done than to present the vision of a quantitative discipline which can be used to serve this end; even the main outlines suggested for its development may be subject to much revision. However, the discipline envisaged has great flexibility and scope, and therewith significance and interest. On the practical side, enlightened control of affairs large and small inheres in its embrace of biological and economic knowledge, making it of concern alike to the educated private citizen and to responsible managers of the planet. On the theoretical side, illumination of the mind inheres in such potential understanding of the biosphere, in the perspective of geological time as well as of day to day living, as the idea may suggest.
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References and Notes
In order:The Outline of History, The Science of Life, andThe Work, Wealth, and Happiness of Mankind. The last (Heinemann, London, 1932: 850 pp.) seems to be least known but is most original and suggestive.
Initiated in a paper definingnational income in a stationary, closed economy in terms of energy supply and utilization:S. Sagoroff, The Concept of Energy in Economics,Weltschaftliches Archiv (Kiel), Bd. 2, Heft 1: 84–101 (1954). In subsequent papers, the basic energy equation of anadvancing economy, and the concept of economic productivity in terms of energy, are formulated: see National Income and General Productivity in Terms of Energy,Schweizerische Z. f. Volkswirtschaft u. Statistik 91 (1): 91–107 (1955). These contributions, together with material from papers on applications of the second law of thermodynamics and of matrix algebra to the energy structure of the human economy, are incorporated with further developments in a book,Theorie der volkswirtschaftlichen Energiebilanzen, Physica-Verlag, Würzburg, 220 pp., (1961).
See BernhardRensch,Neuere Probleme der Abstammungslehre, 1947 — 2 d ed., 1954, English tr. 1959 (Evolution Above the Species Level) — for definition and discussion of the term “anagenesis”. An analysis and extension of Rensch’s concept is given inJ. F. Bennett,Anagenesis and Macroevolution; Ph. D. dissertation, Stanford University, 1962, Part II; a copy exists at the Library of the Institute for Statistics at the University of Vienna.
Schrödinger implied as much inWhat is Life? (1944) but did not speak of veolution in that work. InMind and Matter (1958) he makes use of evolution theory, but at theMind rather than at theMatter (DNA) end of the scale, so to say.
E. VictorMorgan,A History of Money, Pelican Book A. 699, Penguin Books, Baltimore, 1965. 237 pp. See also Wells, op. cit.
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This paper contributed while serving as Fullright Lecturer, Institute for Statistics, University of Vienna, 1967–68.
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Bennett, J.F. Ecometrics: An ideal for economics and ecology. Metrika 14, 293–301 (1969). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02613657
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02613657